Johannesburg — UN officials were upbeat Wednesday about progress towards an agreed plan of implementation in intensive negotiations at the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) in Johannesburg.
Conference spokesperson Sue Markham said the negotiations behind closed doors at the summit venue were going "extremely well".
Targets have been agreed in several areas - on the restoration of fish stocks by 2015, on the health-related impact of pollution by 2004 and on the gender divide in education by 2005. The new target timetables are additional to the 17 agreed at the summit's preparatory meeting in Bali last June.
National representatives, working in what are called contact groups, have divided up the work of forging consensus on different portions of the proposed text. Markham said the contact group of over 100 countries responsible for the draft text relating to finance, trade and globalization met until 3 am Wednesday morning and managed to resolve 52 paragraphs of disputed text, covering issues such as aid, debt and creating an enabling environment for attracting investment.
However major sticking points remained on how globalization should be described in the implementation plan, and on agricultural subsidies, with 20 paragraphs of text still in dispute.
Some countries, led by the United States, argue that there is no justification for including references in the text to the negative effects of globalization. Other countries believe it is important to note that the negative effects need to be offset if sustainable development is to be achieved.
On subsidies, particularly those paid by governments to producers in rich countries, which make it difficult for developing countries to get access to those markets, the argument is about whether to stick to commitments made at the World Trade Organisation's summit in Doha in November 2001 or whether to go beyond those commitments, promising to make 'substantial improvements' in market access and ultimately to phase out "trade-distorting subsidies" completely.
The contact group's facilitator, Ambassador John Ashe of Antigua and Barbuda, said there was a "good spirit of give and take on both sides" in the group. Members had asked to delay resumption of the meeting until Wednesday afternoon to give time for consultations, he said.
The other contact group, co-chaired by Nigeria and Sweden, on 'institutional arrangements' including rule of law, human rights and governance issues, made little progress on Tuesday and Wednesday.
In the 'Vienna process' -- in which regional groupings discuss disputed paragraphs -- there were isolated steps forward. But on issues of sustainable development in Africa, patterns of consumption and production, and protecting the natural resource base, delegations' positions remained entrenched.
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Text on major headline issues like climate change and corporate responsibility remains contested.
Where disputed issues cannot be resolved in either the contact group or, subsequently, in the "Vienna process", the issues will be referred up to ministerial meetings to be resolved.
According to a daily 'negotiations bulletin' published at the summit venue by the International Institute for Sustainable Development, closed informal discussions and bilateral meetings are beginning to proliferate outside the contact groups and "Vienna process", as the negotiators miss deadlines and try to identify which disputed elements can be deployed for doing deals and making "trade-offs" at ministerial-level talks.
